Diane Haar was a war crimes litigator when a catastrophic accident nearly ended her life. She was denied the medical evacuation she had paid for. She came out of recovery knowing disability law was where she had to be.
She founded Hawaii Disability Legal Services in 2012 and represents claimants across Hawaii, the Pacific Territories, and the Philippines, most of whom find her by word of mouth. She still sits in homeless shelters doing applications herself, and she bootstrapped a paperless firm by coding her own case management system before she could afford to buy one. When we called her a systems thinker, she corrected us.
Diane Haar is founder of Hawaii Disability Legal Services in Honolulu, Hawaii.
In this conversation:
- The Person: her sister, the accident, the denied evacuation, and why she still does applications in homeless shelters herself
- The Bootstrap + Book of Business: starting with no loans and banker boxes, coding her own case management system, and how word of mouth reached the Philippines
- Survivor, Systems & AI: the solo years, what she automates now, and where AI breaks down on a brief
- Build It or Buy It: when to build your own tools and when to stop
- Takeaways: what she tells people starting out
"What I actually am is a survivor."
"They don't need the shiny fancy office. They need you to win their case."
This conversation was lightly edited for clarity and never for message.
Diane's firm: Hawaii Disability Legal Services
Join more conversations like this one by RSVPing for a Chronicle event.
Disability Heroes is produced by Chronicle.